The MNAC presents the installation "Aeronautics Interior (Flight)" by Francesc Torres
04/07/2021.
[BCN] Spain 18.06 > 26.09.2021
metalocus, ANNA CLARA BARROS
metalocus, ANNA CLARA BARROS
The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC) presents the new installation by the Catalan artist Francesc Torres that includes full-scale reproductions of two Soviet planes that fought in the Spanish Civil War, and which seeks to integrate with the museum's Aeronautical exhibition on the conflict.
The Interior Aeronautical (Flight) installation presents the planes of the Centro de Aviación Histórica de la Sénia (CAHS) in the Oval Room of the MNAC. The Tupolev SB-2 "Katiuska" and the Polikárpov I-16 "Mosca" are part of the installation that invites us to reflect on the pain that came from heaven to the War.
The Interior Aeronautical (Flight) installation presents the planes of the Centro de Aviación Histórica de la Sénia (CAHS) in the Oval Room of the MNAC. The Tupolev SB-2 "Katiuska" and the Polikárpov I-16 "Mosca" are part of the installation that invites us to reflect on the pain that came from heaven to the War.
"Aeronautics Interior (Flight)" by Francesc Torres. Courtesy of MNAC
Tupolev SB “Katiuska”. Photography courtesy of MNAC
Francesc Torres in front of a “Katiuska” plane. Photograph courtesy of MNAC
Túpolev SB-2 “Katiuska” in flight. Photograph courtesy of MNAC
Leocadio Mendiola, “Katiuska” pilot and commander. Photograph courtesy of MNAC
Members of the Condor Legion eating under an olive tree at the Sènia airfield. Photograph courtesy of MNAC
Sènia women hired by German commanders to carry out housework. Photograph courtesy of MNAC
Pilots barracks building. Photograph courtesy of MNAC
Sènia Aerodrome. Photograph courtesy of MNAC
Crucifixion of Saint Peter, c. 1400. MNAC Collection
The artist Francesc Torres, through his gaze, turns the Oval Room into a stage where life and death unfold. An unprecedented and risky montage to interrogate about the voluntary decision to sacrifice for the defense of an ideal. Aeronautics (flight) Interior originates from a visit by the artist to the historic La Sénia Aviation Field, very close to where the Sénia Historic Aviation Center (CAHS) is currently located.
“In one way or another, everything religious, ideological, political, national or identity is based on a management of life and death, by the factual power, of the individuals that make up the social body of these categories. Only what justifies the giving of life is important, the clearest and simplest way of defining the sacred, whether divine or not. "
Francesc Torres
The intervention, directed by Pepe Serra, raises an analogy with the saints martyred for their religious faith, based on the iconography borrowed from the Crucifixion of Saint Peter, a Gothic panel from the MNAC collection. This parallel raises the question: how far would we be able to go in defense of our ideals?
With the desire to rethink the past from the present, the Museum allocates an iconic space of its facilities to commemorate a sensitive and transcendental episode in Spanish history.
Description of project by Francesc Torres
The artist Francesc Torres turns the Sala Oval into a stage where life and death unfold. Two 1: 1 scale replicas of two Soviet planes that fought in the Civil War put space in tension: a Tupolev SB-2 “Katiuska” bomber, about to crash, and the Polikárpov I-16 “Mosca” fighter. An unpublished and risky montage to reflect on the act of dying for an ideal.
The proposal explores the impact of death that comes from heaven in war conflicts and the voluntary decision to sacrifice for the defense of an ideal. He does so by raising an analogy with the saints martyred for their religious faith, based on the borrowed iconography of the Crucifixion of Saint Peter, a beautiful Gothic panel from the collection of the National Museum of master Pere Serra (14th century). This parallel, precisely in the era in which social networks easily serve as a loudspeaker for our ideals, raises the following question: how far would we be able to go in defense of our ideals?
Aeronautics (flight) Interior originates from a visit by the artist to the historic La Sénia Aviation Field, very close to where the Historic Aviation Center is currently located, whose director, José Ramón Bellaubí Cavaller, carries out the epic recreation of real scale of historical airplanes. From here arises a monumental artistic installation with which Francesc Torres takes even further some coordinates that he had already explored on other occasions: the ambiguity between art and non-art, and the elimination of the dividing line between "exhibition", "work of art ”and“ installation ”. And it is that, in the words of the artist, "an airplane that does not fly is not an airplane, it is a work of art".
With the desire to rethink the past from the present, and within the framework of the exhibition projects that the National Museum dedicates this year to the Civil War, art, conflict and memory, the Museum allocates an iconic space of
its facilities to commemorate a sensitive and momentous episode in our recent history. Francesc Torres, through his gaze, uses art to stir us up and challenge us with issues that have affected human beings since the dawn of time.
More information
Artists
Francesc Torres.
Director
Pepe Serra.
Collaborators
Ajuntament de la Sénia, Department of Culture of Catalonia. Technical Direction.- José Ramón Bellaubí. Graphic design.- Lluís Pera, Lali Almonacid. Project coordination.- Lluís Alabern, Pilar Vila. Supervision and technical control.- Xavier Abelló. Design and technical direction of the hoisting maneuver.- S4E, Solutions for Engineering.
Dates
18.06 > 26.09.2021.
Location
Oval Hall, Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. Palau Nacional, Parc de Montjuïc, 08038 Barcelona.
Francesc Torres
Born in Barcelona in 1948. He lived in Paris in the late 1960s. In 1972 he moved to the United States: first to Chicago and two years later he settled in New York, where he continues to study. Between 1986 and 1988 he lived in Berlin thanks to an academic exchange program of the German government. Since October 2001 he has lived in Barcelona.
A pioneer of installation since the 1970s and an eminence in the world of current Spanish art, Francesc Torres (1948, Barcelona) works with various formats - photography, essays, curating exhibitions, cinema, language and interventions in spaces - in projects where research work is central and in which it explores issues such as memory, power, politics or history. In his installations he often incorporates everyday objects as cultural artifacts, thus exposing their historical charge and poetic power while skillfully dissecting their ideological codes, which remained hidden or camouflaged.
Torres has exhibited individually at the Museu d'Art Contemporàni de Barcelona (MACBA) (2018, 2008), Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (Barcelona, 2018), International Center of Photography (New York, 2011), Artium, Centro- Basque Museum of Contemporary Art (Vitoria, 2009), Fundación Telefónica (Madrid, 2000), MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, 1998), IVAM - Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (Valencia, 1996), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden ( Washington DC, 1992), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, 1991), Queens Museum (New York, 1988), Nationalgalerie (Berlin, 1988), Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh, 1985), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 1981, 1978); Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona, 1979), among others. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions and has been selected to participate in La Biennale di Venezia in 2019, 2013 and 1976.
A pioneer of installation since the 1970s and an eminence in the world of current Spanish art, Francesc Torres (1948, Barcelona) works with various formats - photography, essays, curating exhibitions, cinema, language and interventions in spaces - in projects where research work is central and in which it explores issues such as memory, power, politics or history. In his installations he often incorporates everyday objects as cultural artifacts, thus exposing their historical charge and poetic power while skillfully dissecting their ideological codes, which remained hidden or camouflaged.
Torres has exhibited individually at the Museu d'Art Contemporàni de Barcelona (MACBA) (2018, 2008), Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (Barcelona, 2018), International Center of Photography (New York, 2011), Artium, Centro- Basque Museum of Contemporary Art (Vitoria, 2009), Fundación Telefónica (Madrid, 2000), MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, 1998), IVAM - Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (Valencia, 1996), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden ( Washington DC, 1992), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, 1991), Queens Museum (New York, 1988), Nationalgalerie (Berlin, 1988), Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh, 1985), Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, 1981, 1978); Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona, 1979), among others. He has participated in numerous group exhibitions and has been selected to participate in La Biennale di Venezia in 2019, 2013 and 1976.
